The present embodiments relate to volume imaging in ultrasound. In particular, volume imaging with a region of interest is provided.
In ultrasound imaging, there are well-known trade-offs between frame-rate, resolution, penetration, and contrast. For example, acquisition of real-time volume images with a reasonable field-of-view and at a rate acceptable for cardiology inevitably involves significant sacrifice of image quality (e.g., resolution and/or contrast) relative to the best possible quality achieved at a lower rate. In some cases, it will be desirable or necessary to maintain a full field of view of larger anatomy, such as the heart, when a particular part of anatomy within the heart, such as a valve, is of prime interest. This results in a lesser quality view of the anatomy of particular interest.
To improve image quality of a particular part of the anatomy, the user manually repositions a region of interest around the targeted feature, decreases the size of the region being scanned to only encompass the delimited region-of-interest, and then further adjusts imaging parameters to enhance the image quality. Such a process is cumbersome. The process also requires expertise and attention on the part of the user, especially in a volume imaging context. The process further results in a loss of context due to the reduced field of view.
The reduced field of view is prone to failure due to probe movement relative to the anatomy. Either the probe or anatomy may move and cause the feature of interest to move out the smaller volume and be lost. The likelihood of this outcome is only reduced by making the region of interest conservatively larger than the anatomy of interest to keep the field of view over some full possible range of motion. But the field of view increase in size necessarily comes through a sacrifice of frame-rate and/or image quality within the smaller volume.